Alain Aspect

Alain Aspect is an alumnus of the École Normal Supériere (ENS) in Cachan and the Université d'Orsay. He has held positions at the Institut d'Optique, the ENS in Yaoundé (Cameroon), ENS in Cachan, ENS/Collège de France, and CNRS. He is currently a professor both at the Institut d'Optique Graduate School, where he holds the Augustin Fresnel chair, and at École Polytechnique, in Palaiseau. He is a member of science academies in France, the USA, Austria, Belgium, and the UK. He is the recipient of the CNRS Gold medal, the Wolf Prize in Physics, the Balzan prize on quantum information, the Niels Bohr Gold medal, the Albert Einstein medal, the Ives medal of the OSA and other awards. His research has focused on tests of Bell's inequalities with entangled photons, wave-particle duality for single photons, laser cooling of atoms with lasers below the one-photon recoil, quantum simulation, and quantum atom optics with ultracold atoms (More details on: http://www.lcf.institutoptique.fr/Alain-Aspect-homepage). Photo credit: Jean-François Dars.

By closing two loopholes at once, three experimental tests of Bell’s inequalities remove the last doubts that we should renounce local realism. They also open the door to new quantum information technologies. Read More »